


i sometimes wonder if all pleasures are not substitutes for joy

by broccolee_7



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: But for love, Fluff, M/M, Markhyuck week 2021, Revenge, Royalty, day 4: dreams | magic, happy ending :), mahae would go to the ends of the world for each other :(, soft ending :(, wishes and genies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28407756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broccolee_7/pseuds/broccolee_7
Summary: Donghyuck is familiar with having everything served to him on a silver platter, with having his each and every wish granted in the space of a heartbeat. He's familiar with losing things, too, things he can get back and things that he can't.But he's never felt desperation like he does standing at the foot of a castle in the cloak of the night, like he's felt in all of the months it's taken him to get there. After a life rich with power and heavy with luxury, Donghyuck has finally found something worth killing for, and he'll die before he comes out of that castle without it.or, there's a nasty spider king who's stolen something from Donghyuck, and he'll stop at nothing to take it back
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119
Collections: Markhyuck Week 2021





	i sometimes wonder if all pleasures are not substitutes for joy

**Author's Note:**

> hello :D hope everyone is having a lovely day, if you're here i cherish you and wish you the best of luck in the new year !!
> 
> hope you enjoy !

The night lies still and sharp, coiled like a snake and harboring a tension that mirrors the taut lines of Donghyuck’s silhouette. It’s a welcome contrast to the blaze in the stables he’d come from. His face is still flushed from the heat of it, throat sticky from the smoke, but his focus is firm, his footsteps certain. The guards flocking to the fire don’t look twice at him, and he slips through the shadows at the edge of the path leading to the main grounds.

The castle stands tall and silent on the swell of the hill, achingly beautiful in the moonlight. Pride blooms in Donghyuck’s chest at the delicate spires and wide, earnest windows, just as gentle and breathtaking as their creator. It’s a far cry from the dark, stocky fortresses that most kings hide in, though Donghyuck knows that the king within its crystalline walls is the ugliest of them all.

Donghyuck supposes he’d been the same once, hypnotized by a dream that had seemed to rest right in his fingertips. But he woke up, and will never again make the mistake of falling prey to the lure of wishes. There are far more important things than flimsy grandeur and hollow power, he’s come to learn, and one such thing lies at the heart of the castle in front of him.

The handful of guards at the front gate have abandoned their posts to rush to the fire, and Donghyuck darts inside unnoticed. He has to stop himself from pausing to admire the entryway, for the interior of the castle is just as ornate.

He runs through hallways etched with curling designs, passes towering stain glass windows that glitter even without the sun catching in them. Even the tiles of the floor are unique, mosaics of vivid colors and scenes. It’s almost _too_ detailed, and a lick of anger strikes Donghyuck’s chest at how much energy Mark must have put into each fine line, each curve of stone and hinge of iron.

All of a genie’s power rests within the words of the wish, and Donghyuck prays that the king hasn’t pushed Mark to the limits of his power. Donghyuck himself hadn’t realized that Mark had such limits until it was nearly too late, and it cost him everything.

Once a king with a people at his feet and an army at the tip of his fingers, Donghyuck slinks through the halls of the empty castle, nothing more than a thief in the night. There was a time when he would have thrown himself into the spectacle of it all — a mysterious cloaked figure, sweeping through floods of guards falling at his feet and commanding the king’s presence, a message to the world that even after being stripped of his title and his power, there were some things that would always belong to Lee Donghyuck. After months in exile, he no longer cares for the eyes of others, and this king possesses something that Donghyuck needs more desperately than any proclamation or show of power. And so he has no qualms about taking the low road, breaking in unnoticed while the king’s army fights for his borders and his meager force of guards rush to the burning stables.

He passes through the decadent halls with the footsteps of a ghost. The whole place is eerily silent. Even in the middle of the night Donghyuck expects a castle of this size to have _someone_ bustling about, be it kitchen staff or guards, maids or other servants. Ever since he entered the kingdom, Donghyuck’s heard rumors of how the king’s genie fulfills his every desire, from spinning a storm over his enemies to producing a glass of wine to quench his thirst. And Donghyuck was certain that they were merely rumors, because surely after so many months with a genie at his beck and call, the king would have discovered the nature of the wishes’ power.

Donghyuck learned early on that wishes must be shielded like secrets. As soon as someone becomes aware of the illusion surrounding them, the genie feels an itch, a prick of sensation to alert them that someone’s seen through them. If more people discover the wishes, the pain escalates, clawing vicious tears in the genie’s fantasy and letting their power bleed out of the wounds.

To Donghyuck’s knowledge, it is in the king’s best interests to keep the wishes hidden, and so he’s always assumed the talk of such trivial wishes to be a bluff. Except, he hasn’t seen any kitchens, or storage rooms, or servants’ quarters. The entire first floor, typically home to these places, consists of ballrooms and banquet halls, lavish entryways and majestic galleries.

Donghyuck wonders if the king is unaware of how he is destroying his genie’s power, or if he is weakening his servant on purpose.

His lips tighten; both options taste like ash on his tongue. He slips through the halls at a brisk pace, following the path he’s seared into his memory in preparation for this night. He forces himself to look ahead, to stop his eyes from catching on the beauty surrounding him. The gloss of wooden railings, the careful lines of looming marble statues — all of it rich in the outskirts of his vision.

It leaves a bittersweet taste in his mouth. He grew up in a palace not unlike this one, with satin drapes and marble floors, ceilings that arced over his head to create rooms yawning with majesty. And even when he’d been cast out, he found Mark, and they built their own paradise of chiseled stone and lush courtyards, of gaping halls for visitors and cozy nooks for the two of them. Now, Donghyuck’s apartment has ceilings so low that he has to hunch over, nothing more than a safe place to sleep and store his few belongings.

Even with the money he’s saved up for a real home, he’ll probably never stand in the mouth of such wealth again. When his footsteps slow at the base of the stairwell, he tells himself that he’s staying cautious, stealthy, and isn’t entranced by the dazzling chandelier above him. It demands his gaze, basks in his awe-struck stare, a web of crystal and silver that sparkles in the flickering candlelight.

He starts on the next flight of stairs, and freezes. There’s a portrait on this wall, taller than Donghyuck himself, set in a thick frame of solid gold. The king lounges in his throne, crown crooked on his head, but Donghyuck only has eyes for the figure beside him.

It’s Mark, perched beside the throne and looking so small that Donghyuck barely recognizes him. His face is shadowed, eyes cast down and covered by his bangs, his visage reduced to lazy brushstrokes, an afterthought. In contrast, the golden bands covering his wrists, meekly crossed in front of him, are painted with a blinding highlight. They’re all the more noticeable because his arms are bare, and his clothes are dark enough that the background swallows up most of his form. Donghyuck’s blood boils when he sees that the artist has taken the liberty of adding chains, shackling Mark’s bound wrists to the seat of the throne like he’s some kind of pet.

Donghyuck has royal blood in his veins, and he builds masks and facades to cover his emotions as naturally as he breathes. But he looks at this depiction of Mark, set at the top of the staircase like a prize for all to see, and a snarl rips through his throat, fists clenching at his sides so hard that his nails cut into his palms.

His chest is ice cold as he scales the stairs, frigid with the kind of anger that’s stewed for too long to be aflame. It’s a calming sort of fury, sharp enough to clear his vision and solidify his focus. Donghyuck will find this king, and he will take everything from him.

He walks with rigid purpose, each step falling like a bolt of lightning charring the ignorant earth.

The entrance of the royal chambers is unguarded, just as Donghyuck expects it to be. He’s familiar with the heady flavor of wishes granted, and its way of tricking men into thinking they’re gods, blanketing them in a haze of invulnerability. The king won’t ever see him coming, won’t ever recognize the illusion surrounding him until it crumbles.

Donghyuck bolts the door in movements that are painstakingly slow and precise. His own breaths are raspy in his ears, and the king snores thickly at his back. Donghyuck stares at the grain of the wooden door before him, the iron of the latch cold in his quivering fingers. Once he turns around, he’ll have to begin, and beginnings sit at the feet of success and failure alike.

He imagines the halls of this castle disintegrating, just as his own had. Everything Donghyuck ever wished for, exploding into particles of dust. At that point, he and Mark had only just started replacing parts of the castle, because they found that genies put some of themselves into each wish and Mark was withering away with how much of himself he’d poured into Donghyuck’s dream. They planned to fill in their wish-woven lives with threads of reality, until they could quietly free Mark from his prison without dismantling the world they’d created. And so a few things remained when the wishes reversed.

It broke Donghyuck’s heart even more when those things, the _real_ things, crashed to the ground, the foundation vanishing from beneath them. The windows they’d imported from the south shattering, the furniture of their bedroom ending up in a mound of splintered wood and tattered velvet. The only evidence that Donghyuck and Mark, together, was anything more than a dream.

Now, the moonlight catches on the bolt of the door, and Donghyuck’s breath stutters, and he’s so, _so_ afraid to face the man who took everything from him. He remembers that vicious smile as he’d reduced Donghyuck’s entire world to ashes, the ruthless laughter at the fear in Mark’s eyes when his will bent to a wish that hadn’t come from Donghyuck’s lips. He remembers how Mark had pried at the golden bands on his wrists in a way that he hadn’t for years, how his cheeks had been wet with tears as the king had forced Donghyuck to his knees.

He remembers how Mark refused to bow in those final moments, undone wishes flowing into him and restoring his halo of power, gaze sharpening to offer Donghyuck a final look of certainty before vanishing, the only form of rebellion he had left. Donghyuck meets that strong, clear stare in his mind, and he steels himself.

The king’s chambers reek of luxury, but Donghyuck only has eyes for the thin chain circling his bloated neck. He approaches the bedside with gossamer footsteps, puts one knee on the bed and eases half of his weight onto it. Even in sleep, the king’s meaty fingers curl around the pendant, gripping it like it’s his own heart instead of the one he ripped from Donghyuck. Each twitch of the king’s hands around the coin-shaped charm ripples through Donghyuck’s own body, squeezing at his heartbeat and raking over his veins.

Donghyuck searches for the clasp of the chain with the gentlest of fingers, the delicate links sliding over his skin with a soothing familiarity. The king slumbers on as he snakes it from beneath his neck, letting it pool in the cradle of his palms.

Only when Donghyuck begins prying the pendant from his clutching fingers does the king wake. His breath hitches, brow tensing, and Donghyuck has a knife at his throat before he’s opened his eyes. Donghyuck’s never been one for violence, but he relishes in the blood that wells up along his blade as he meets those black eyes, small and filmy from sleep.

The king’s stare is unfocused, caught between dreaming and waking, and Donghyuck tries to yank the pendant from his grasp. The man’s grip only tightens, and recognition flickers over his face.

“King Haechan, was it?” He chuckles, an oily sound that Donghyuck wants to cut out of his throat. “Just a beggar, now.”

“As if you’re any different,” Donghyuck snaps, because everything in the room around him serves as evidence of it.

The king’s smile twists over his face, as cruel and dark as his eyes. Donghyuck aches to make him bleed. But no matter how many times he’s rehearsed this whole evening, ran through every step and practiced every action, his gut wrenches at the thought of taking a human life. Only his icy hatred of the wish-drunk man before him keeps Donghyuck’s hand from trembling on the hilt of his knife, keeps the pressure of the blade steady.

“You’re no killer, boy,” the king spits, and Donghyuck flinches. “Take him, there’s not much left of him, anyway. He can barely put a meal on the table these days, he sure as hell won’t be able to-”

He chokes on his own breath, blood bubbling up where Donghyuck’s knife kisses his windpipe. His eyes go wide, black pupils rolling wildly, and Donghyuck wrenches the pendant away from him. The blood flows down his neck, stains the golden silk of his sheets. Donghyuck can’t bring himself to hate the part of him that’s glad the king woke, glad Donghyuck has a chance to carve the life from his coal eyes in the same way he had once carved Mark from Donghyuck.

The king is right, though: Donghyuck is no killer. But the king is also so intoxicated with realized wishes that he knows nothing of the desperation eating away at Donghyuck’s heart, can’t comprehend that after a life of riches, Donghyuck has only just found something worth killing for.

As soon as he tucks the necklace safely in his breast pocket, every trace of gentleness leaves Donghyuck’s body. The king must see something shift in his face, because he’s shouting for his guards, a hand coming up and circling Donghyuck’s wrist, body writhing in the sheets. Donghyuck ignores him, even when he hears his vocal cords scrape together to manage a gritty scream. Blood pours from the wound as Donghyuck pulls the knife away, easily shaking off the king’s desperate fingers in the process. He keeps his fingers loose around the hilt, tilting his wrist to shift the weight of it until the tip of the blade swings to the king’s jugular.

There’s a weak banging on the door, a muffled yell. It can’t be more than one or two people, but they’ll certainly gather reinforcements. Something metal clangs against the latch, and the wood rattles in its hinges. Whoever is on the other side settles into a rhythm that thunders through the walls with each strike. Donghyuck curses; the door will hold, but it’s his only exit. The point of the knife falls limply to the king’s crimson skin.

Donghyuck shifts his weight off the bed to survey the room, uncaring of how the king’s hands fly to his bleeding throat. A wooden chest sits opposite the bed with a crown tucked in stiff velvet, and Donghyuck gravitates to it. Each peak shines like the edge of Donghyuck’s knife, and the jeweled rim glitters like a mirage. It’s far too beautiful to have been forged in human hands, just as everything in the castle seems to be. It’s no wonder the king said Mark was fading; Donghyuck sees him in every detail, in every careful instance of beauty.

He doesn’t have much time. More guards will arrive at any minute, and the door won’t hold against their combined efforts. Donghyuck’s left hand instinctively migrates to the weight of the pendant against his chest. Everything he could ever find the words to wish for is pressed under the surface of the metal. He came to this castle to find it on his own, to take back what belongs to him with hands clean of wishes.

But Donghyuck remembers how every undone wish had flowed into Mark, how he’d radiated the power of a god. He remembers the sharp edge of determination in Mark’s final stare. He thinks of the breathtaking spires and the intricate patterns in the floor, of how much of Mark he felt in every detail. And Donghyuck realizes that Mark has been preparing for this moment for just as long as he has, that he trusts in Donghyuck to find him even when the whole world lies between them and Donghyuck is nothing but human.

The slap of the king’s bare feet against the stone floor echoes through the room. His breaths are heaving, raspy gusts of air punctuated by wet coughs, barely discernible from the slowing assault on the door. Donghyuck wouldn’t fear him even if he were unwounded, even if he wore gleaming armor and carried a mighty sword, and he keeps his back turned.

 _“I can forge you a crown and build you a castle, give you a throne and ask people to kneel before it, but I cannot make you a king,_ " Mark had said when Donghyuck first spoke him into being, nothing more than a boy in a dingy alleyway without his title and his family’s name. The words have never left Donghyuck’s mind, stopping him from falling into the wish-drunken stupor that commands the man stumbling at his back. But Donghyuck has never understood them like he does now, looking at this ruin of a man who calls himself a king and insists that he reigns over a kingdom that Donghyuck has been taught to dream of.

The man is nothing without the necklace, without the glint of his crown and the majesty of his castle, and Donghyuck can’t wait to let him drown in everything he’s lost.

Donghyuck eases the pendant from his breast pocket and into the dip of his palm. The cold of it seeps into his skin, an exchange that he knows to go both ways, the metal eagerly sucking in Donghyuck’s heat. He breathes a bit easier at the bite of it, runs a reverent finger over its face. A thin crack mars one side. It’s rough where it should be smooth, catches Donghyuck’s touch where it shouldn’t. The pendant has never broken before, but Donghyuck can’t afford to fear what it might mean.

The banging on the door and shuffling footsteps behind him fade to the back of Donghyuck’s mind as he rubs a thumb over the faint engravings of the letters also written on his heart. He presses the pad of it into the center, and murmurs a name that hasn’t left his lips in months.

Mark is in front of him in a heartbeat, and something inside of Donghyuck collapses. He’s as faint as the king described: gaunt skin stretched over hunched shoulders, eyes half-lidded and hazy. Stuck in the confusion that always assaults him after being locked in the pendant for too long. It takes him far too long to get a handle on his body, and Donghyuck can’t imagine how much time he’s spent tucked away. Mark’s always hated being in the pendant, trapped in the endless expanse of absolute nothingness that he was cursed to inhabit and unable to live for anything but the desires of his master.

Mark blinks as he starts to settle into himself. His eyes catch on something over Donghyuck’s shoulder, and Donghyuck is reminded that they haven’t won yet.

“Mark!” The king is panting, voice high with delirium. “Mark, I wish him gone, I wish him out, I wish him _dead._ ”

Donghyuck sees the naked fear in Mark’s face, unsure of who has summoned him, of whose words will crest over his body and force him into action. His gaze flits over Donghyuck as if he is nothing more than a wish, and Donghyuck aches to whisk him away. But he still sways on his feet, and Donghyuck stands just too far away to reach out and steady him. Instead, Donghyuck holds the pendant snug in his palm, takes a step closer, and smiles. He cradles Mark’s stare in his own and _beams_ , for Mark is more powerful than any kingdom, and Donghyuck knows how to wield him better than anyone else on earth.

“ _Minhyung,_ ” the king hisses, because names like that hold power no matter whose lips they fall from, and this king’s power is slipping through his fingers like sand.

Mark gasps, faded body flinching and shivering with the pain of the word, and Donghyuck spins with a roar, bloodied knife flashing in the moonlight.

"Don’t you dare say that name."

The king only laughs, wipes a bloody hand over his open mouth and smears red across his cheeks. He narrows his black eyes, and his lip curls as he realizes that the genie is no longer his to command. A fit of coughs wracks his body as he sinks to his knees.

He glares up at them, bloody spittle flecking his lips and a pale hand pressed to his throat. “What, did you think you’d- you could _wish_ your way out? The goddamned thing can’t even keep my bath warm at night, certainly can’t- can’t get you out of here.”

The pounding at the door strengthens with the force of several men, sounding just on the edge of splintering open. Donghyuck thinks of the crack in the pendant, the haziness of Mark’s form. He vowed to never be the one milking wishes, to never call on Mark to pour the entirety of himself into a desire. Right now, Mark can barely stand up straight, and Donghyuck will never forgive himself if he makes that final wish, if he is the one to push Mark beyond his limit.

Donghyuck’s head spins. The guards will be flocking to the door, if they aren’t already, and Donghyuck doesn’t think he can protect himself and Mark the whole way out. He could use the king’s life to bargain for freedom, but that would leave Mark defenseless, and there are too many guards for them to come out on top of any deal. The window is the only other option, but they’re four stories up. Donghyuck could survive the fall, but Mark already looks a breath away from dissolving.

Unless Mark returns to the pendant, just until Donghyuck can get them to safety. With Mark tucked away, Donghyuck has a chance of fighting his way out, or going out the window as a last resort. Donghyuck’s heart clenches, because he only just freed Mark from his prison, but he can’t risk losing him again. He entered the castle as a man with everything to gain and nothing to lose, but now he holds his heart in his hands and he’ll die before letting it go.

“Donghyuck?”

The name comes when Donghyuck is about to turn to Mark, an apology on his lips for what he is about to ask. A cold hand clasps around Donghyuck’s wrist. It tugs him around until he faces Mark, sees the awed smile on his pale lips and the reverence shining in his tired eyes.

“You came for me,” Mark whispers, and Donghyuck’s heart breaks.

The door gives way, the center splintering, and Donghyuck’s pulse quickens. He places a firm hand on Mark’s neck, thumb stroking his jaw, touch heavy in his urgency.

“Mark, I need you to go-"

Mark hushes him, his own hands coming up to frame Donghyuck’s face. His eyes have cleared, and they hold the knife-sharp focus that Donghyuck’s been dreaming of. He speaks in a voice that is far too light, and a smile tugs at the side of his mouth. “You’ve already gotten us this far, Donghyuck. Now it’s my turn.”

The men barreling through the door freeze at the scene in front of them: their king on his knees, howling voicelessly, blood flowing down the defeated curve of his throat, as everything around him disintegrates, wishes upon wishes unraveling and flowing back to the one who had granted them.

The fire in Mark’s eyes strikes Donghyuck in the same way it had when he’d first seen him, young and dumb and mistaking love for control. It’s a proud flame, the same one that had blazed years ago when Donghyuck proposed that they walk the path to power together, that he would learn to frame the words of his wishes to use every ounce of power simmering under the genie’s skin to the fullest. It’s bright and knowing, soft around the edges, and Donghyuck falls in love all over again.

“Make a wish,” Mark murmurs, with a smile that warms Donghyuck to the core.

Donghyuck dutifully takes the pendant in both hands, smoothing his thumbs over the grooves of the engraving. He brings it to his lips, and wishes the words directly onto its surface.

Mark closes his eyes and pulls Donghyuck into his arms, and Donghyuck feels everything slot into place. He tucks his face in the crook of Mark’s neck as Mark rips apart the wish-laden life he’d been forced to create, drinking in each luxurious detail until his form ripples with power, blazing against Donghyuck’s skin.

There is the sound of stone crumbling, metal clashing, the king wheezing and the guards shouting. There is the roar of destruction, the scream of all things breaking into millions of pieces and returning to nothing.

And then silence.

Donghyuck looks up to find them exactly where he’d wished they’d be, warm and whole in each other’s arms. It’s pitch dark, and they have to hunch over under the wooden beams of the ceilings, but Donghyuck feels mightier than he ever has while sitting on a throne. 

“I’m done,” Donghyuck whispers into the darkness of his room. “That was the last wish, just to get us out of there.”

When Mark’s lashes flutter open, Donghyuck meets the eyes of a lion, glittering with pride and something raw and wild. He looks right into Donghyuck’s soul, and Donghyuck swallows heavily. 

“Okay?” he adds, because he needs Mark to understand, needs to make sure that he knows Donghyuck didn’t get Mark back for the magic cursed to flow through his veins.

Mark’s brow furrows. He’d been just as hungry, in that alleyway all those years ago, and Donghyuck wonders if he craves revenge now like Donghyuck did back then. They’d spent so much time growing together, always on the same page, two sides of the same coin, that he doesn’t know how to move forward after so much time apart.

Donghyuck isn’t even sure what he wants. Just as Mark had once given himself over to Donghyuck’s wishes, Donghyuck has passed months spending his every breath to become someone who could take Mark back, and he has no idea what comes next.

“We’ll see,” Mark replies, and it’s not what Donghyuck wants but it’s good enough. 

Mark’s bare arms are pale in the dim of the room, and Donghyuck guides them to sit on the bed. He fumbles to light the lamp at his bedside, almost afraid to expose the emptiness of his room, the worn floorboards and discolored walls, the too low ceilings and the tiny window on the southern side. It felt like a prison cell when he first moved in, but it’s never been permanent, and the low rent and location in town make it the perfect place to build himself back up.

The golden candlelight spills over the room, illuminating the mess of Donghyuck’s life crammed into a single room. He busies himself with tugging his nicest clothes from the trunk at the foot of his bed, trying to will down the flush rising in his cheeks.

But when he turns to give the clothes to Mark, his eyes are already on Donghyuck, warm and earnest in the syrupy glow. Mark barely spares the bundle of fabric in Donghyuck’s arms a glance, and Donghyuck finds himself shrinking under the intensity of his attention. 

“I know it’s not much, but I’ve saved up enough to go somewhere better,” Donghyuck rushes to explain. “To get a real home, together.”

Mark’s eyes widen, something like awe cresting over his face. 

“Donghyuck, this-” Mark ducks his head, a shocked exhale of a laugh falling into his lap. “This is perfect already, but that’s, that’s even better.”

Donghyuck snorts. “This place is even worse than the servants’ quarters. You’re lucky I love you enough to put up with it.”

He keeps the words light, almost joking, to test the unfamiliar waters between them, but there’s nothing subtle about the wide grin that spreads over Mark’s face, the way his eyes crinkle and shine even brighter.

“Thanks,” he says in return, though his real response lies in the heat of his gaze, in the way his hand reaches for Donghyuck’s and laces their fingers together.

He leans into Donghyuck’s side, and it feels like no time has passed at all. Even without the four poster bed and the mounds of cloud soft pillows, it feels like they’re curled up on a lazy morning, nestled into each other and dreaming of the days ahead of them.

“We should go back to the sea,” Mark murmurs. “Find someplace right on the shore, so that we can hear the waves at night again.”

Donghyuck hums, smooths a thumb over the back of Mark’s hand. They built their own castle right on the cliffs, because the jagged rock and crashing waves mirrored their own untamed power, matched the rawness of their dreams. Now, Donghyuck thinks a softer sea would appeal to them, calm waves lapping at the shore and fresh ocean air.

“I traveled through a town on the coast, I think you’d like it.” Donghyuck keeps his voice soft. He tells Mark about the winding cobblestone street and the bakery on the square, what he knows of the king who rules over it. Mark nods along, but Donghyuck hears the sleep tugging at his voice, muting the excitement blossoming between them.

“Here, we can talk about it tomorrow, or anytime, really. It’s late, and we just took down a whole kingdom.” He eases Mark’s weight off of his side and flat on to the bed, smiling down at him as he chuckles.

“We did, didn’t we?” Mark says through a drowsy grin. “We’re getting good at that.”

With Mark splayed on the bed in front of him, Donghyuck’s eyes catch on the emblem sewn beneath his collar. It shouldn’t matter, because Donghyuck is no longer a king and neither is the man who wore this crest, but it pricks at the remnants of anger in Donghyuck’s chest, speaks to the part of him that wanted to paint the blade of his knife with blood. If Mark still bears the crest, then it must not have been a wish, and it makes Donghyuck all the more desperate to undo it.

Donghyuck blinks when Mark sits up, facing him now. Mark’s eyes are just as far away as Donghyuck feels, and his face is tired, but his movements are precise. He takes the pendant from where it’s fallen between them, leans into Donghyuck’s space and fastens it around his neck.

He lingers there, arms bracketing Donghyuck’s face and eyes so close that Donghyuck can count his lashes. The pendant rests over Donghyuck’s heart, and he’s forgotten how much he missed the weight of it there, the smoothness of the gold against him. Mark peers down at it, forehead almost brushing Donghyuck’s chin. He tucks it inside Donghyuck’s shirt, brings it to rest right on Donghyuck’s skin where it belongs.

Everything about the moment is fragile — Mark’s gentle fingers, the focus tightening his lips, the way Donghyuck holds his breath and watches him. Mark presses a kiss to Donghyuck’s shoulder, drags his touch down the lines of the chain until his hands trail off Donghyuck’s hips and return to his own sides. When he pulls back, eyes still on the chain around Donghyuck’s neck, Donghyuck remembers that Mark was a king once too, that Mark is just as familiar with the pride of calling something his own.

So Donghyuck doesn’t even try to be subtle when he reaches for the shirt he’d gotten for Mark, worn and warm and _his_. “You can wear this for now.”

There’s a quirk at the corner of Mark’s mouth, and Donghyuck knows he’s come to the same realization. Mark goes to tug his shirt over his head, and Donghyuck grabs his wrists.

“Wait,” Donghyuck says, clambering around to kneel fully on the bed. “Let me.”

He pulls Mark’s shirt over his head like he’s made of the finest porcelain, because Mark has been cursed to bend to the wishes of others and Donghyuck wants to treat him like a king. And as he’s met with the sight of Mark’s bare chest, the dips of his collarbones and the slope of his shoulders, the months between them disappear.

It’s Mark in front of him, as bare and honest as the shabby room around them, and he’s exactly what Donghyuck’s been chasing for so long. He’s like a dream before Donghyuck’s eyes, but he’ll still be there when the sun rises in a few hours, and all the days that follow.

It’s a brilliant feeling, glittering in Donghyuck’s stomach like the shine of dawn on ocean waves and twinkling around him like windchimes in a summer breeze. Donghyuck drapes the shirt over Mark’s shoulders, eases his arms into the sleeves, runs his fingers over every inch of the treasure before him.

Mark pulls him to lie down before he can do up the buttons, and Donghyuck falls into him as naturally as he breathes. They’ve both spent enough time remembering that it’s easy to pick up where they left off, but they’ve both changed, and it’s just as thrilling to relearn each other as it is to realize what’s the same.

When Donghyuck finally blows out the candle, the darkness washes over them as a single being, and the entire night uncoils, every ounce of tension evaporating like a lost wish.

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh thank you for reading <3 im honestly not sure how i got from midnight rambling to THIS (well i kinda do tysm happy birthday you know who you are <3) 
> 
> feel free to leave thoughts/suggestions in the comments but thank you for checking this out :)


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